


Wait and Watch

by Mitchy



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:28:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitchy/pseuds/Mitchy





	Wait and Watch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thetidebreaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetidebreaks/gifts).



“DEEKS!”

Kensi put a note of anger in her voice and was pleased to see that Deeks jumped a respectable height before turning round with one of his patented “I'm Too Cute To Yell At” smiles on his face.

“Kensi! How are yoOOOOF!”

The thing about interrupting Deeks when he was working on the punch bag was that he always forgot the bag would bounce back. She looked down at his prone form and smiled a wicked smile.

“Doing that will _never_ get old.”

“Are you sure?” Deeks wheezed. “Could we negotiate for maybe it getting old before I'm, say, 50? 60? 70?”

“Maybe 80,” Kensi said, thoughtfully. “By then, I'll have graduated to booby-trapping your zimmer frame.”

“You think we'll be together when we're 80?” Deeks said, starting to beam. “I like that. Let's grow old together, Kensi!”

“You'll never make 80, Deeks, someone will swing for you long before then.”

“Well, we _do_ do a dangerous job...”

“No, Deeks, Sam will probably force feed you to a rottweiler.”

“Admit it, you'd be sad if that happened.”

“I'd pity the dog.”

Deeks clambered up off the mat, and stripped off his gloves, grinning at her and moving closer.

“You know it hurts me when you say stuff like that.” He did his best puppy dog pout, but Kensi wasn't visibly moved.

“C'mon, get changed, we have work to do – we're due to relieve Adams and Steiner at the Baines stakeout in 30 minutes.”

Deeks paled. “That's today? Uhh, it's my turn to drive, right?”

“Nope.”

“You totally drove last time!”

“Did not. Besides, I already have the car keys. Possession is nine tenths of the law, right, Lawyer Boy?”

Deeks sighed. “OK, can we negotiate on the music at least? Listen to some rock, or even heavy metal?” Off her smirk and headshake, he persisted “Well can we at least have the music at a volume that doesn't melt my ear drums? Huh? Can we do that?”

He was talking to her departing back but she threw him a mischievous wave over her shoulder by way of consolation. She could hear him whimpering; it was always fun to make a grown man cry.

***

An hour later, Deeks was rifling through the case file for the umpteenth time, as they sat in the car outside a nondescript apartment block. They'd negotiated a truce on the music after Deeks had indulged in some extensive whining. Kensi listened to whatever she wanted, but at a volume that didn't try and turn his brain to jelly.

He checked the street, saw the same lot of nothing as five minutes ago and went back to rummaging in the file.

“Quit that, or I'll take the file away from you,” Kensi threatened. “We've only been here 30 minutes, you can't be that bored. No, wait.” She forestalled Deeks' by holding up her hand to silence him. “Sorry, of course you can, I was forgetting you have the attention span of a mayfly.”

“C'mon, this stakeout is a long shot _at best_. Baines' ex-girlfriend might only visit here once a year for all we know. We don't even know for sure who she visits when she comes here!”

“It's all we've got. Callan and Sam have hit a wall on finding Baines; if you think this is a long shot, you could be with them, sitting on a crack house that Baines _may_ have visited when he was using.”

“I'll grant this has a nicer view,” Deeks snarked. The apartment block was just a shade the wrong side of “grungy” but it wasn't bad compared to the buildings further down the block.

He felt Kensi looking at him. “What?”

“Are you really complaining about the opportunity to take down a piece of scum like Baines, however slim it might be?”

Caught, he could only admit the truth. “No. Not really.” He held up a photo from the file. “After what he did to that girl in San Diego? No. He gives a horrible new meaning to “a girl in every port.” He flipped through several more photos. “Hawaii, Osaka, Seattle, San Fransciso...”

“Yeh. So speaking as a girl, any chance I can get to stop another woman going through what they went through? I'll sit here for a year if that's what it takes.”

“Fair comment. However, after six months, I get to choose the music, right?”

“In your dreams, Deeks,” Kensi said, but her smile took the sting out of the words. He felt his stomach flip as it always did when she smiled like that and told himself sternly to concentrate. He scanned the street again and suddenly froze. He felt Kensi tense at the same time.

“Speak of the devil....” Kensi started before stopping, sounding faintly stunned.

“Damn, that's Baines! What the hell?”

“Eric! Baines is here, notify Callan and Sam. He's going into the target building.” She turned to Deeks even as she was opening the door. “I'll follow him in, you come in the back way. We'll pin him between us.”

“Got it.”

They moved together, in sync, Kensi casually strolling into the building behind Baines, Deeks rolling out to the right, around the car and heading fast down the alley that ran down the side of the building, heading to the back. He rattled through the back door, heading towards the hallway at the front. Baines was nowhere in sight...neither was Kensi. He prodded the ear piece and muttered “Kensi?”

Silence.

Not good.

He drew his gun and sidled into the foyer of the building. “Foyer” was too grand a word for the plain, grubby area between the doors and the elevators, an area worryingly lacking any sign of either Baines or Kensi. He checked the elevators but both were still on the first floor. Three doors led off the foyer: one was marked “Maintenance”, another “Superintendent” and the last one had a very battered metal sign that said “S AI S” Deeks wasn't a crossword kind of guy but he was willing to bet that led to the stairs.

“Eric?” he hissed as he crossed to the door.

“Yes?”

“I've lost Kensi, can you track her? Do you have plans of this building?”

“Building plans, yes any...second..now. But I can't track her, Deeks. The buildings around there are too closely packed to get any kind of read. I lost her signal when she went inside. I can't see yours either.”

“I'm on the first floor, outside the door to the stairs. Anything useful I should know?”

“No basement to worry about, those stairs only go up to the apartments. One fire door leads to each floor. “

“OK, I'm going up...”

He pulled the door open a crack, checked it was clear and then cautiously opened it wider with his foot, sweeping the space with his gun. Nothing...except for a cell phone on the floor. Kensi's. Damn.

“Found Kensi's cell. She may have run into trouble. Send back up. I'm going up now.”

“Sam and Callen are 10 minutes away.”

Nobody pointed out that ten minutes might as well be ten hours in this situation. Deeks started up the stairs, glad not only of his police training, but all the things he'd learned since joining NCIS. He went up each flight methodically, pausing at each landing to crack open the fire door and scan the corridor beyond. Kensi and Baines could be anywhere but he was willing to bet that wherever Kensi was going, she wasn't going quietly.

It was on the fourth floor he heard the noise – it wasn't much, but it sounded a lot like something being kicked.

“Eric, heard something on the fourth floor. Checking it out.”

“Roger that, Sam and Callan will be there in 7.”

Rolling around the door, Deeks heard another noise to his right and did a fast 180. Carefully padding down the hall, gun ready, he checked every door, listening hard. Fourth door down, he was about to move on when he saw them – the long scrapes near the door base that looked like someone had raked it with heels. He smiled. Kensi was a kicker, a fighter, and she'd left the clue she knew he'd be looking for.

Backing off down the hall, he rapidly filled in Eric and gave the apartment number.

“Mr Deeks, wait for Callan and Sam, they'll be there in 4 minutes,” Hetty's voice came over the comms.

“I'm not waiting,” he informed her, politely but firmly. “You know Baines' record, I am NOT leaving Kensi in there with him. I'm going in.”

Silence greeted his statement, which he took as tacit approval – that was going to be his story and he'd stick to it.

Flattening himself against the wall, he reached out and rapped it firmly. “Super! Got reports of a water leak. Flat below has two showers, they're not happy!”

Silence greeted him. He didn't cope well with silence. He was reaching out to bang on the door again when he heard the nasty, familiar sound of a shotgun being racked. He yanked his arm away from the door just in time to avoid the blast that ripped a fist-sized hole in the wood. The second blast did nothing to improve the décor of the hall, but did create a big enough gap for Deeks to risk taking a quick look through before kicking in the door.

Baines was swiftly reloading the shotgun, but he was no match for a pissed off cop worried sick about his partner. Stupidly, he still tried to bring the gun up to bear and blow Deeks to hell, but he never stood a chance. With a precision born of rage, Deeks drilled him twice, dead centre: Baines was dead before he hit the floor.

“KENSI?” Deeks was bellowing even before the echoes of the gun shots had faded away. Later, he would pause to reflect that he'd shot and killed someone; later he'd recall what Baines had done to some innocent women and he'd drink a little more and make peace with the deities he believed in. Right now, he was frantically scanning the room for Kensi's familiar shape.

“DEEKS!” The yell was muffled, but the thumping on the closet door led Deeks to the furious figure of his partner, who was bound hand and foot and looked ready to kill.

Relief swept through him. “Eric, Hetty, Baines is dead, Kensi's fine.” He hastened to cut the bindings at Kensi's wrists and feet, and hauled her up before she dislocated something in her efforts to get free.

“Are you all right?” he demanded, no banter in his voice.

“Yeh, I'm good. Dammit, he caught me out,” Kensi muttered, looking chagrined. “I think he knew we were here, he was waiting for me in the stairwell.” She rubbed her head. “Don't know what he hit me with, but it stunned me good.”

Deeks quietly held out her cell to her, which she accepted gratefully. “Hey, I had your back, you know that right?”

She looked at him. “I knew you'd be ten seconds away. I didn't doubt that for a minute.”

They looked at each other in silence, each of them feeling like something had shifted, that they were on the cusp of something new. Then they heard sounds of feet running and knew that Sam and Callan had arrived and the moment passed.

But Deeks knew it had been real and his heart thumped just a little harder and with a lot more hope.


End file.
